Just In Case
by Morbid DramaQueen10
Summary: "Can I kiss you?" Fluff, pure fluff. Belle/Gold-Rumpel. One-shot. Related to "Accidental," and "Someone."


**Just In Case**

**Or **

**Kiss You**

**I like titles. **

**Belle/Rumpel-Gold, Storybrooke**

**Disclaimer: OUaT certainly is not mine, though one can wish. **

**Beta'd by my lovely Old Romantic, who is currently working on a Belle/Rumpel piece herself that you should check out-Far Beneath the Bitter Snow. It's been a delight to read and I am shamelessly promoting. Which I would only do if I enjoyed it, which I do. Check it. She's been entirely brilliant, and has polished up my various one-shots quite nicely. *bows* A thousand and one thanks. **

**This was written on the fly, in the spur of my Belle/Rumpel obsession. Please enjoy.**

**-XXX-**

"Can I kiss you?"

He is unsure at first if this is her ill and addled mind talking, or the true and healthy girl he so adored. That was the problem-Belle was already a peculiar girl, so one had to be careful when approaching her. The sanity came and went with the wind.

"What?" he asks cautiously over his coffee mug. She doesn't look up from slicing her dinner roll.

"Before, I couldn't kiss you," the young woman reminded him. Calla, as she was known here. Not crazy, then…distracted? "It would break your curse."

Voice lowered, he can tell the memory is still a tender one. It still is for him, as well. But the pawnbroker is left without a reassuring reply; he knows not what to say, how to comfort her long-born pain. Besides, how could one brush away such a scar with mere murmurs, or tender whispers? It would surely take far more than words to erase his blunders. So, he sits in silence.

Cutlery clatters against his china for several long minutes before he manages, "Why, my dear? Do you mean to kiss me?"

A half-smile. "Perhaps."

Progress has come slowly but surely. More often than not she was herself. And yet…the muddled darkness would seep in. Inevitably. Weeks may pass, and she might wake up in the night, and he would find her viciously scrubbing the bathroom tiles, kneeling on soft pink knees. Or else he would find her kneading dough at three a.m., greasing bread pans. Or laying in the back yard, on the lawn, staring into a starless night sky. There were always stars in her eyes, regardless.

Sometimes she wouldn't (or perhaps, could not) speak. Her eyes maintained a dull glaze, and Gold found himself guiding her through the house, into bed, and sitting in the hard chair in the corner until she slept it off.

The doctors said it was the medication. Not necessarily harmful, merely a side-effect. He did not tell them he'd stopped administering the drugs long ago. No need to fuzzy up her mind any more, he reasoned-she did that well enough on her own. Giving her medicines aimed at further plunging her into confusion or a state of dull being would not lend to progress.

Other times she spoke in the midst of these episodes. But always thinga of airy nonsense. Of teapots, singing street signs, dancing clouds, and kisses.

Powerless, he continues watching her eat, the coffee mug back in his hand and half-raised to his lips.

"My dear, are you feeling alright?"

Startled, she glances up from her dinner plate. "Quite well, thanks. Of course."

His lips quirk of their own accord. "Of course." He echoes.

She tilts her head prettily. Spiral locks fall past her shoulders. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing." he assures her grandly. "I am just curious as to why you might want to kiss an ol' codger like me."

Calla smiles quietly, as if enjoying a secret or private joke. She does not reply right away. And when she does, the answer is another question.

"Why ever not?"

Her hands creep across the polished surface of the table. That is one of her sweetest traits-her touch. While he was reluctant with his skin-to-skin contact, she was free with it, offering her hands at any opportunity. To comfort. To heal. To love.

Gold is not entirely sure how to respond to this. He mentally stumbles through a few sentances before saying something vague and slow aloud. "I am not…appropriate for you," he manages, "my dear."

They would talk. Oh, how they would talk of the senseless young woman and the perverted shopkeeper who took advantage of the mentally ill. And she was so young…and kind…and…and….

"You really shouldn't," he finishes lamely, with a slight rasp. Forehead creased, the pawnbroker stared into his coffee cup, hinting that he was trying very, very hard not to look at the youthful creature that perched before him. Tender, and curious. Like a songbird. And, if he moved too quickly, too sharply, looked the wrong way, made the wrong sound, well then. She'd fly away.

As every bird does.

That's why birds were beautiful, after all. To Gold, it is not the feathers, the sweet melodies produced by larks through harden beaks, or any of that that draws him in. It is their freedom. The wild nature. Their wariness.

But, if patient...if you held still, and offered the seed quietly and kindly, you might very well find that one brave bluebird perched upon your fingertips.

"Is the curse still active?" Belle asks innocently, completely unaware-blissfully unaware, _painfully _unaware-of his struggle. "Or can I kiss you?"

"Yes," he finally says after a very long pause, during which he is left entirely breathless. "yes, you could…kiss me. If you would wish to."

Her smile is benevolent for a brief moment before it fades from her face. Then, off-handedly, she says, "That's good to know."

His mouth drops slightly. "Good to…?"

"Oh, for the future." Belle tosses her curtain of chocolate-coloured hair over one shoulder, eyes lowered demurely . "Just in case."

**-XXX-**

**My last piece of business, Ceremony,  was fairly well received, and while it was wonderful to see so many favourites and alerts, reviews would be awesome too! For every 5 alerts/faves, there's one review. And that kinda sucks. Feedback would be lovely. Thank you, m'dears. **


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